


Decus Et Tutamen (An Ornament and A Safeguard)

by theshockblanket



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ancient Greece & Rome, Alternate Universe - Slavery, Ancient Rome, M/M, Prompt Fill, Slavery, WIP
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-03-22
Updated: 2012-09-30
Packaged: 2017-11-15 07:55:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/524943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theshockblanket/pseuds/theshockblanket
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><strong><b>NOTE: </b></strong> I received some amazingly positive feedback on what little of this fic I was able to produce before university and some personal issues took over my life. However I'm not planning to come back to it until I'm comfortable with my approach to the topic of slavery, which is not something that should be used as a cheap narrative tool. The prompt gave no requirement for slavery, but when I was younger (but old enough to know better) I thought I could get it right. It would take a much longer fic to treat it properly.<br/>Prompt: Two politicians die suddenly in the same week, and Lestrade - a centurion in the First Cohort of the Cohortes Urbanae - suspects foul play. He consults Sherlock Holmes, a Roman aristocrat whose boredom with the hedonism of wealthy society drives him to study the anatomy of crime and corruption. Sherlock quickly figures out there is a deeper conspiracy at work and hires John Watson, an ex-gladiator, as his constant bodyguard. John is a dignified professional but is also fascinated by Sherlock's intellect, and Sherlock in turn finds his presence oddly stimulating. Very stimulating, in fact.<br/>Please anticipate heavy themes, including slavery and implied past non-con.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tawabids](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tawabids/gifts).



> Originally prompted by tawabids on the LJ kinkmeme way back in March. Hoping to pick up the pace...
> 
> I don't think there's any vocab for this part except lanista (gladiator-owner) and a few words like sesterce/denarius which are Roman currency. Also, an atrium is kind of like a multipurpose greeting-room. This fic is set somewhere between 200-280 AD but I'm leaving that open deliberately.
> 
> The title means 'An ornament and a safeguard' and is found in Virgil's Aeneid (which I love) and also around the edge of some British pound coins.

  
  
The fierce afternoon sun pounded down onto Rome, reflected sharply by the white marble temple on the Capitoline Hill, sloping high above them. The sweaty, bustling forum thrummed with energy as slave-dealers and wine-sellers hollered out deals to the swarming throng of buyers; a litre of wine for a couple of sestertii, a tunic for twenty-five - "No, madam? Then twenty sestertii and a kiss?" The slick, salty smell of perspiration clung to the heaving, seething mass of the churning crowd as nimble delivery-boys darted here and there with wooden carts piled high with fruit and fish.  
  
Amidst the chaos, unperturbed and disinterested, Sherlock was _inspecting._  
  
He skimmed his fingertips along the slave’s rough-cut hairline, noting the way the short, coarse hairs glinted a dusty golden colour in the sun. The pads of his thumbs skittered down along the faint bony ridges behind the slave’s ears and back along his stubbled jaw line. He tilted the slave’s head first left, then right, but the man refused to look Sherlock in the eye.  
  
The slave could use a wash and a shave, he surmised, but he looked healthy enough, despite the discoloured circles under his eyes. Sherlock stepped back to study the wooden board around his neck. _GLADIATOR,_ it read, in spiked Latin script; _CALEDONIAN. THIRTY YEARS OF AGE. OBEDIENT. SPEAKS SATISFACTORY LATIN; NO GREEK. CANNOT READ OR WRITE. HEALTHY._  
  
“What’s his name?” he demanded, sharply.  
  
The overweight lanista shrugged. “The man who sold it to me called it John, though mostly I just call it 'slave' or 'gladiator'.” He leered suddenly, showing dirty yellow teeth. “Or 'bitch'.”  
  
Sherlock raised an eyebrow, but said nothing; he’d already decided he disliked this little lanista, with his bloated belly and thin, greasy hair. Instead, he turned the slave around, noting the thin whip-scars across the shoulder-blades; all between three years and six months old, which meant the slave was a good one, but only recently broken. There were a few flat-edged purple contusions tinged with yellow - training bruises, he realised; the gladiators used fists and wooden swords outside the shows. He traced a long, pale finger over the mark at the base of the slave's spine, just above his loincloth, noting the imperceptible tightening of the gladiator’s shoulders at the cool touch. Intriguing.  
  
“Why are you selling him?” he demanded, fingers fanning over the faded black band of a tattoo on the man’s upper arm. His limbs were warm and solid; well-sculpted from fighting, Sherlock guessed, though he’d seen larger men. Clearly, the man was well-fed, as gladiators go, but not overly so; his hips and thighs were sturdy, but lean. Practical, somehow.  
  
“Too functional,” said Publius. “Only does what he _needs_ to do in a fight, won’t draw it out or draw blood without killing. The crowd don’t like it. He’ll make you a fine bodyguard, of course, but…” He shrugged again. “A man has to make his money somehow, and the crowd won’t pay to see him when they can see the other lanistae's gladiators put on fancy shows. I suppose you could say he’s boring.”  
  
 _Wrong,_ thought Sherlock, instantly, and then blinked in surprise. He studied the man’s calves mutely; they were well-built, though compact, like the rest of him. Built for stamina more than speed.  
  
“Do you want to see him without the loincloth?” asked the lanista, suddenly.  
  
Sherlock whipped his head back around to stare at him. “No. Why would I?”  
  
Publius spread his flabby hands, palms up, as though it should have been obvious. “Why, sir, most men like to see what they’re getting with my merchandise.” He leered again. “I promise you, though, he’s very... _sensitive._ ” He drew the word out almost hungrily.  
  
Sherlock stared at him for a moment, uncomprehending - and then it came to him, all in a rush, and bile rose in his throat. Suddenly the oppressive heat packed in against his skin like a swaddling-cloth, pressing against his flushed cheeks and constricting his breathing. It should have been obvious the gladiator would be used, of course; it’s what slaves were _for_ \- amongst other things - but the thought of this flabby little man touching _anyone_ was nauseating.  
  
“Ah,” he said slowly. “No. Not really my area.”  
  
Publius stared at him blankly for a moment, then rallied, winking. “Of course! Forgive me. I can cut you a deal with one of the girls, then, if you like; knock off a few sesterces if you buy them together.” He gestured to the rest of his slaves, standing submissively a few feet away. A few of the girls glanced at Sherlock fearfully from beneath hooded eyes, clearly resisting the desperate urge to cover their naked breasts. “ _They’re_ not from the arena, of course. I just dabble; these are gentle girls. I’ve got a lovely one from Nubia who can do the most amazing trick with her -”  
  
“No,” said Sherlock, firmly. He felt slightly ill. “I don’t - that is, no. None of the men. Or the girls. I’m not interested.” He raised a hand to stop the man’s protests. “I just want a bodyguard who doesn’t interrupt me when I'm thinking about my work - which, incidentally, is _always_. Everything else is transport.”  
  
The lanista beamed. “Oh, my noble lord, you needn't worry about that. It doesn’t speak without being spoken to.” The curve of his mouth suddenly twisted into a smirk. “I’ve shut it up once too often for that.”  
  
Sherlock shuddered.  
  
-  
  
  
There had been some haggling, in the end, and the overseeing quaestor had been less than pleased with the effort of writing on a wax tablet sticky from the sun. He had tried to shortchange Sherlock on his tax money, but Publius had cleared his throat and glanced at the rampant lion engraved on Sherlock’s signet ring - and suddenly sycophantic smiles and silver sesterces had flowed from the official’s desk like wine. It hadn't been long, after that, before Sherlock had left with a considerably-lighter money pouch and a promise that the slave would be delivered by dusk.

  
____________________________________________________________

  
  
John was _North._ He knew this from long ago, when he lay tiny and helpless in the fur skin of a wolf, crying out for milk. He knew it from his first mouthful of meat, and from the memory of his father teaching him to hold a spear; to throw it so the animal died before it knew what pain was, before it could let out the great ugly death-scream that still made him sick to his stomach. He knew it from when he first wrapped his legs around each side of a pony’s warm belly and whispered _go_.

He’d fallen off, of course, but his sister had picked him up, kissed his forehead and settled him back into the curved dip of the horse’s spine, showing him how to hold on, where to grip with his knees. It had taken weeks, perhaps months, but eventually he had been good enough to ride south and see what everyone whispered about; the great, terrible wall. It had been the one man-made line of hated stone in a world of undulating free curves and high, singing slopes where the wind curled into the knots of heather beside the winding swirls of the river.

So the tall, straight lines of the marble house bothered him; the sun glinted off the white pillars of the porch the way it used to glint off the sea spray, except the pillars were firm, unchanging, not flowing or free. Set back into the city hillside, it was beautiful, in the Roman way, but to John it looked like a geometrically-enhanced prison, and the man standing at the entrance was his new master, the latest sharp edge in a long succession of sharp edges.

He could be worse, John supposed. He was young, at least, with curly dark hair and high cheekbones; his bearing was Roman, but his nose was undeniably Greek. He looked as though he might be able to find girls willing enough to warm his furs without needing to use John, and he had rejected Publius’ offer to strip him in the forum. He tried to tell himself that Sherlock Holmes might not be too terrible a master.

But he still bought him, paid money for him. He was still _Roman,_ all straight edges and smooth lines and _walls_ , and when he dared to look at the man’s eyes he found them cool and unyielding.

Publius cuffed his ear. “Stop staring,” he hissed, and John snapped his head down to gaze at the floor.

“That’ll do,” interrupted his new master, sharply. John looked up, surprised, but then the man added, “He’s _my_ property now,” and John dropped his head again. _Of course._

“Of course, my lord, of course,” said Publius, fawningly. “Won’t happen again, sir.”

Sherlock ignored him and turned to John. “You will call me Sherlock or _domine_ at all times,” he said brusquely. “I’ve bought you to stab people before they stab me. You will stay with me at all times except when I say otherwise. In exchange, you’ll be fed, clothed and you’ll have a place to sleep. Is that understood?”

John fought back the twist at the corner of his mouth. It was such a _Roman_ thing to do, to put someone else between themselves and danger. The man was a coward, after all. But he nodded, lips pressed together. It was comforting to think that he would be stabbing Romans for a living, at least.

“Excellent,” said Sherlock. He jerked his head at Publius. “ _You_ can go,” he said, voice clipped with dislike, and whirled away into the house, sandals scuffing on the mosaic tiles of the floor.

John moved to follow, but Publius caught his arm, leering at him. “Farewell, my sweet,” he murmured, leaning in, so that John could smell the putrid stink of fish on his breath. “A goodbye kiss, perhaps? You never did give me one, after all.”

Stomach lurching, John almost bolted into the house.

*

His dominus - the word was still bitter in his throat - was shuffling papers in the atrium; a large, expensively-decorated lobby with several rooms opening off to each side. Hesitating in the doorway, John took in the wall frescoes of ships and gods and tall, pale warriors with dark eyes and sharp swords. On one wall, three ships were weathering a high storm; on another, a hulking soldier stood poised to rip another man’s armour from his fallen corpse. To John, it was meaningless; he thought of the rounded, thick-woven walls of his old home and felt the familiar tug of homesickness in his stomach.

He _would_ go home, one day, when he had a plan that would get him out of Rome, through Gaul and across the water to Britannia. The southern tribes might help him then; he could easily get past Londinium, perhaps beg or barter a horse from the Iceni on the eastern side and ride north-west. He could trade the horse for a guide from the Brigantes to take him as far as the Wall; after that he  could creep past the Roman forts under cover of darkness. From there it would be easy, he thought; he knew the lie of the land better than them. He knew where to swing low into the bracken and disappear, hiding in plain view, and where to walk safely on a trackless expanse of mossy rock -

He became aware, suddenly, that Sherlock had stopped reading and was watching him intensely.

“You’re thinking about home.” It was not a question.

John’s throat went dry. _Not the whip,_ he thought, desperately, _not the whip, not already._ The whip was worse than the fighting; at least in the arena he had gone into combat with equals. Under the lash of the whip he was infinitesimal, insignificant, less than human. _Conquered._

“I’m not going to whip you,” said Sherlock. "What's the point? Although, if you'd been here this morning..."

John eyed him warily. How could he -

“I read people,” added Sherlock, carelessly. “I’m a detective. It’s my job.”

_Job_. He realised, suddenly, that he knew _nothing_ about his new dominus.

_I don’t need to_ , he reminded himself. _He’s Roman._

“Do you actually _have_ a tongue?” demanded Sherlock. “Stop looking at me like that, I’m not going to cut it out. Unless-” He seemed to check himself. “Wait here,” he commanded, and swept across the atrium, disappearing through a thick drape into another room.

The atrium seemed smaller, somehow, without him. John glanced around at the mess. Several loose scrolls lay scattered amidst the plush cushions of the marble benches. Off to one side, there was a long, shallow pool, clearly built to collect the rainwater from the sloping roof of the open ceiling, though it was almost empty; it hadn’t rained in at least a week. John _missed_ the rain; missed running wild-footed through the stormy mountains, nose full of the sharp smell of the damp, purple-grey heather.

He realised, dimly, that he was still dressed in his grimy loincloth; most lanistae would have had their slaves bathed before sale, but Publius was a sewer-rat; he had splashed some water over John’s sweaty back and flicked at his skin with a strigil and left it at that.

At home, mud wouldn’t have mattered, nor loincloths. In the years before he had been taken; he had spent long afternoons standing naked and proud as he speared fresh fish in the summer swell of a bright, shining river that flowed on and on, relentlessly surging towards a wild, untamed sea. Even in the pit-cells beneath the Coliseum, dirt hadn’t mattered; in the fetid stink of sweat and oil and constant, raging fear, one more dirty gladiator had been nothing to look at. But here, where everything was white and gleaming, it seemed somehow shameful to stand in rags, with dirt caked under his nails and dried sweat flaking from his back. He felt like a intruder amongst the opulent decadence of his master’s house.

_I don’t need to impress him,_ he reminded himself, sharply.

Sherlock reappeared in the doorway, cutting off the thought. “Here,” he said, flatly. “A tunic for you. You can’t follow me around Rome in that loincloth; you’ll scare the horses.”

John stared at the tunic. It wasn’t a slave’s tunic, he could see that at once; it was soft and thin, the colour of oatmeal. The lines of the neck and hem were well-stitched; it was more expensive than anything Publius had ever worn. He wondered when Publius had become the yardstick by which he measured other men.

“Thank you,” he said, awkwardly. Was this a gift? A bribe?

Sherlock dropped it onto a marble bench. “I’m not being kind,” he told him, sharply. “That tunic was a gift, but unfortunately my aunt seems to have a rather better impression of my shoulders than I would have expected. I’m not going to waste money buying you a new tunic when you can wear that.”

It was almost a relief, John decided, as he pulled the tunic over his head. Kindness in Romans was dangerous, unpredictable. In the way the dirt still clung to his skin beneath the soft material, Romans were all vicious beneath their kindness.

Trusting Publius had shown him that.  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vocab: lectus = couch, Eboracum = York (in north-East England) Caledonia = Scotland (after a fashion...)

The atmosphere was _painfully_ awkward.

 Sherlock tried to concentrate on reading the scrolls of notes on the case so far - two dead senators, found lifeless and cold within days of each other, with no apparent wounds and no reports of recent ill health - but his interest kept shifting to the new slave.

 There was no logical reason for this to be so. The slave had retreated to a dim corner of the room with his back to the wall, clearly waiting for Sherlock to give an order. The honey-gold sunlight was tinged with burnt orange where it fell in shafts through the open ceiling, licking faintly along his golden-brown hairline. Yet somehow he managed to fade deliberately into the background, even when Sherlock swept past him on the pretence of pacing out a difficult problem in his notes. He kept his head bent low and unthreatening, his hands hanging loosely at his sides. They were good hands, Sherlock thought; strong and warm-looking, with broad flat palms and tanned fingers. Pale, faded marks of outdoor work were worn onto the knuckles; an old scar ran across the back of his right hand, from thumb-joint down to the bump of his inside wrist.

 Abruptly - inexplicably - Sherlock wanted hands like those. His own were long and moon-pale - the hands of a man unused to manual labour. There were no lines of wind or rain on Sherlock’s skin; only a thin white scar on his left thumb where he had nicked the pad too deeply during an experiment. He was as unspoilt as the marble statues in the city temples -

  _Temples._

That brought him back to the case at hand; the dead magistrates. One, old and gaunt, had been found sprawled on his back in the temple of Minerva, his glassy blue eyes rolled back in his head. The Vigiles had dismissed it as a heart attack - old age, they had declared; inevitable.

 Three days later, Gaius Lucius, a young, healthy magistrate on-the-up, dubbed ‘one to watch’ by political gossipers, had been found face down in the temple of Apollo. The physicians had been at a loss, and the Urban Cohort had stepped in.

 And now - _this_.

 Sherlock turned the papyrus over in his hands as he paced around the room, his echoing footsteps the only sound in the quiet atrium. There must have been _something_ he had missed - anything. The coded message that had arrived only that morning; a series of numerals scrawled in a messy hand across the low-quality papyrus.

 

_XII. CCLVIII. V_

_II. XLVIII. VI_

_II. XLVIII. VII_

_VIII. CCCLVII. II_

_VIII. DCLV. VI._

_XII. DCCCXXVIII. II_

　

No addressee, no signature - only the scroll, delivered at the break of dawn by a messenger-boy who had disappeared too quickly for Sherlock to stop him. Even the broken clay seal was plain; no family crest, only an ugly daub of dirty greyness that had clearly been attached in a hurry.

 It had to be related, he thought, though he had no idea why; if it was a threat, it seemed illogical to conceal it; if it was a warning, even more so.

 He was oddly glad he had invested in a bodyguard, anyway.

 　

-

 

John watched Sherlock from beneath veiled lids. The Roman had stopped eyeing John - and that odd scroll he had been fixated on for so long - and was reclining moodily on the white-gold coverlet of the _lectus_ \- the couch - lips pressed tightly together with dissatisfaction as he massaged his temples with long, pale fingers.

 Perhaps the man regretted his choice of slave. John couldn’t blame him; he was a wreck, at best. The old whip-marks on his back were proof enough of his disobedience; the messy arrow-scar in his left shoulder was unsightly at best. He was living on borrowed time, though perhaps he had more of it now than he had had in the arena.

 Oddly, the thought didn’t comfort him.

 When the nobleman had agreed on a price for him - was it really only hours ago? - he’d felt a mixture of anger and relief; anger that a man was paying out money for him, like a common beast at market, tinged with the relief that it had been a man of his own age rather than the old, fat men who had looked at him with lecherous eyes; or worse, the idea that no one would buy him, and he would belong to Publius indefinitely.

John shifted his weight to his other leg for the fifth time; the blood rushed into it sharply, tingling as if he had plunged it into a jagged mess of thorns. It was unsurprising, really; he had been standing stiffly in the atrium for well over an hour, watching Sherlock stride around the room, unrolling scroll after scroll, face knit in irritation.

What the dominus had been looking for, John had no idea, but it seemed that he hadn’t found it; he lay supine on the coach, nose wrinkled in irritation. A dark crease had formed between his drawn brows, making him look harsh and severe. He might have been sleeping, except that tension crackled along every taut line of his body; from his pursed lips down his white throat and collarbone, through the tunic-covered line of his torso and through his legs, all the way along his slim calves to the flexed toes digging into the soft material of the gold-stitched cushion leaning against the curved arm of the lectus.

He was like a young, untamed horse, thought John, watching him; restless and impatient, as though the confines of the couch were too close to contain him. He stretched from end to end of it, head tilted back over the arm of the couch and tunic slipping down to reveal slender, coltish legs. Sometimes he would sit up sharply, like a startled beast, an idea written all over his face, and then he would collapse again, blowing an impatient breath out and upwards, lifting his short fringe, as though ruffled by a northern breeze. John thought briefly that it was a shame the man had been born a Roman, that there was an energy in him that would not have been out of place in the North - then bit down sharply on the idea. A Roman was a Roman; he could never be anything else.

A loud silence crept awkwardly into the room, ringing endlessly, like an unwanted visitor. It was not so much that the darkness grew over the atrium, but that light and colour bled out of it; the last of the orange light faded despondently into grey obscurity.

“John,” came Sherlock’s deep voice, at last.

John tensed, “Domine.”

“You can’t read Latin, and you don’t speak Greek. Correct?”

“I read a little Latin,” muttered John. “Sir.” He could spell his name, at least; an old arena cellmate had shown him by scratching it into the dirt with his finger, over and over. He had taught him the alphabet and the spellings of a few basic words - _victus, aqua, ita, nōn,_ he remembered chanting.

Then he had been sent up to fight a lion, and John had never seen him again.

“Numbers?” Sherlock’s voice cut through the memory.

“I think so.” John frowned, trying to remember. Numbers were simple, like pictures; a straight line like a branchless tree for _unum,_ two slanted lines joining together like far-off bird’s wings for _quinque,_ two intersecting lines like crossed spears for _decum…_

“Read this to me.” Sherlock cracked open an eyelid and held out the roll of papyrus.

John crossed the room nervously, swallowing as he stopped beside the lectus and took the scroll. His hands shook as he unrolled it.

Was it a test? He frowned down at the scratched lines; Roman numbers were difficult enough in daylight, but in the half-dark it was hard to distinguish his _Ls_ from his _Is._.

_XII._ “Twelve,” he said quickly, confidently, but the next one was harder; two curved lines and a right angle before the bird-figure and three branchless trees. _CCLVIII._ “Um. One hundred and - no, _two_ hundred and - and fifty…eight.” The next was _V_ ; easy. “Five.”

Sherlock was impassive. “Yes. Does that mean anything to you?”  
John blinked. “No.” He glanced down. _II. XLVIII. VI_ “Um…two. Fif…forty, wait, I think - forty eight. So two, forty eight…six.” He frowned. “Sir-”

“Forget it,” muttered Sherlock. “I should have known.” He sat up, swinging his long legs back onto the floor as stretched out lean, nimble fingers, picking the scroll out of John’s hand. “I had hoped that you would see something different.”

John was startled into the next question. “What would _I_ see that you wouldn’t?”

“It was an idle thought.” Sherlock’s tone was lofty. “I thought perhaps a different set of eyes would understand it. It’s a code.”

“Then why don’t you-” John broke off quickly, biting his tongue.

"Because,” said Sherlock, irritably, apparently hearing the unspoken half of the question, “whatever idiot sent it to me failed to tell me how to read the cipher.” He looked distinctly petulant. “Without it, I am powerless.”

John couldn’t help it. He laughed.

It was a disbelieving, bitter, slightly-ill sort of laugh, but it was a laugh, and his master’s eyes narrowed instantly.

“Is something amusing?” Sherlock demanded.

_Don’t,_ John’s brain supplied, but his mouth was already moving, too fast for his mind to catch up and snap it shut. “You,” he said, a twisted smile plucking at his lips, “you, a Roman, powerless; I think not.”

Sherlock stood abruptly, unfolding his body with a quick, fluid movement.

John’s brain supplied several colourful Caledonian swear words that translated roughly to _shit bollocks buggery-fuck arse._

 Sherlock’s pace was smooth as he circled John and the lectus, closely enough for John to smell the spiced scent of his skin, but far away enough to feel like he was being watched by a lurking hyena.

 Sherlock would whip him now, he was certain of it, or worse; he thought of Publius’ methods of retribution and flinched. He could feel new beads of sweat inching down his spine, the clammy dampness pooling at the small of his back. His thighs were tense, shaking with the effort of staying upright - staying in control of himself, his body. What if Sherlock pushed him face-first into the couch, tunic thrown emotionlessly up around his hips -

 “Powerless,” said Sherlock, lightly, somewhere behind him, slightly off to the right.

 John clenched his jaw. _Control, control, control._ He could feel his ankles rolling inwards, calves trying to push the weight back, support him -

 “No,” continued Sherlock. “I suppose I’m not.”

 John’s leg gave up, knees buckling into submission, crashing into the mosaic tile. For a moment he was back in Britain, hands tied, shoulder a mess of blood and flesh from where the arrow had pierced it -

  _\- stumbling behind the cart, the soldiers jeering at him from their ranks as they marched, victorious, laughing. “_ _Barbarus,” they had said, over and over again, laughing at him as he stumbled behind, dizzy from blood loss. He hadn’t known what the word meant, then; laughed through the taste of thick blood in his mouth because they sounded like sheep, bleating out the same syllables over and over again. “Barbarus. Barbarus.”_

  _His knees had given out, eventually, but there had been no mercy; the others were in the slave-carts, some unconscious, others weeping, all broken. He could still hear the choked sobs of mothers._

  _Powerless._

 

- 

 

“John!”

 

The voice seemed all around him, and yet far away, as though he was underwater, drowning. He reached a hand out, groping on the darkness -

 

“John. _John!_ ”

 Sherlock’s voice brought him into the present with a sharp jolt, restoring him to earth; the man was kneeling next to him, brow furrowed. The room was now almost completely dark; Sherlock’s face stark white against the shadow. He was a broken mess on the floor, one arm flung across the lectus to support him, Sherlock’s bony hand gripping his shoulder. He was surprisingly warm, registered John.

 The man was staring at his scar, eyes squinting in the dim light.

 “Dealers or soldiers?” he demanded, at last.

 John stared at him. “Domine?”

 “The men that took you - that made you walk in chains, didn’t stop if you fell.” Sherlock pointed at his leg. “Dealers or soldiers?

 He _knew._

 “Soldiers,” he said, hollowly; “soldiers, from the battlefield to the south, as far as Ebaracum, and they sold me there.” He paused. “I wasn’t worth much by then.”

He braced his shoulders, waiting for the laugh of derision - of disdain. The insult, or the laughter, the observation that he still wasn’t worth much - never had been, never would be.

Sherlock’s lips parted to form a sound. John waited to hear it - the stinging words, the threats, the name _Publius_ …

“How do you feel about the kithara?” Sherlock said.

John flinched, caught off-balance. The kithara? Was the kithara some sort of whip? “Domine?”

Sherlock heaved an exaggerated sigh and flung out one arm, pointing at a shadowy alcove off to one side of the room. An odd, harplike instrument the size of John’s torso sat on the broad white ledge; it had four wooden sides, the base being the thickest and supporting two curved sides connected by a crossbar to which seven strings were attached.

“I play the kithara when I'm thinking,” continued Sherlock. “Sometimes I don’t talk for days on end. Would that bother you?”

_Would that bother me?_ John stared at him incredulously.

“We should know the worst about each other,” continued Sherlock, wryly. He sat back on his heels, fingers still splayed across John’s shoulder. It was oddly grounding.

 “We don’t know _anything_ about each other,” said John, because he seemed to be getting away with it, so far, and because his brain was too numb from shock to catch up with his mouth.

 Sherlock took a breath. There was a beat. Then -

 “I know you’re a horse-trainer, taken in battle, from north of the Antonine Wall - as far North as Rome has ever been - and you’ve only recently been sold to the arena - six months, I’d guess.” His eyes roamed over John’s face contemplatively. “I know that before that you were sold as part of a contingent of slaves in - where was it? Ebaracum - and sent south as far as one of the ports to be shipped to Gaul.”

 John clenched his fists on his thighs, short fingernails digging into his palms. _Invasive fucking -_

 “You were a bad slave until - what, five months ago? Six? Then someone died…” Sherlock paused. “Your brother.”

 John’s heart twisted in quiet fury.

 “Probably older than you. He died and you just-” He made a gesture with his hand. “Ah. That’s when you arrived in Rome. You were sold to that fat little lanista.”

 John held himself perfectly still. _Don't give him the satisfaction._

 “And then,” Sherlock said, pleasantly, as though there was nothing wrong with sitting on the floor gripping his slave’s shoulder and recounting the events of the last three years, “you were sold to me.”

 Silence fell.

 The dusk had completely given into night, with only a white sliver of moonlight pooling on the floor.

 “Now,” Sherlock said, levering himself coolly to his feet, “I think that’s enough to be going on with, don’t you?”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry, especially to the original prompter. A lot has gone on (I've moved to England (though only from Wales, really) to study, for one, but it's mostly been other things that have caused the delay) but I won't deny that if I had really forced myself then I could have worked through those. So I'm not going to pretend that I can really offer an excuse that completely validates the delay here. I can only promise that it shouldn't be as long in the future.  
> In reference to this chapter, just understand that the Vigiles are separate from the Urban Cohort, and the UC are the closest equivalent Rome has to a police force, though it's not really the same as the modern force. Also, I have changed Gregory to Gregorius for Lestrade. Did you know that Gregorius means watchman? Also, the Chief Superintendent we all know and hate is mentioned as Antonius Pittus. I don't know the character's real name, but the actor is Tony Pitts, so, well.  
> This is not an action chapter; it's just developing the story. The slow pace is meant to reflect John's sentiment that nothing happens to him, though of course that's not true. This chapter has been split into two because it was too long, which means I have a solid start on Chapter Four, so I'm hoping that won't take me long.

Over the next six days, in the course of a monotonous and dull existence, John’s blood boiled and bubbled beneath his skin.

 “Sometimes I don’t talk for days on end,” the man had warned him - and for the most part, it seemed to be true, apart from the occasional unprompted, irritable declaration.

 “I’m _bored_ ,” Sherlock would announce to the air, at random intervals, whilst slicing open something that John was fairly sure looked like eyeballs, or after carefully measuring out a small vial of blood into a dish and mixing it with dust. “Bored, bored, _bored._ ” And he would flounce off, tunic swishing around his lean thigh muscles, into another room, and John would drag himself behind him, leg aching and sore after hours of simply watching Sherlock _think._

  _What is it that you actually **do?**_ John wanted to ask, several times - but the tight, oppressive silence held him back. Sherlock seemed distant, disaffected; as cold and inaccessible as the frescoed images on the walls.

 Even between fights, in the most dank, fetid holding cell of the ludus, John had had _company._ None of them had spoken his own language - Publius had been careful about that, if nothing else - but generally they had communicated with him in looks and words and broken Latin. It had never been friendship, or brotherhood, but there had been an unspoken solidarity between the condemned; a mutual respect, at least, if not trust.

 Sherlock simply ignored him.

 The _salutatio_ each morning was the most bearable part of the day. As a Patrician, dependents who regarded Sherlock as their patron would in the first few hours after dawn; generally they were shabby, badly-dressed lower-class citizens who brought pieces of information that made little or no sense to John, such as, “The cobbler said he sold three large pairs to a lady with light hair, sir, but only one to a dark-haired gentleman,” or “She ain’t seen nothin’, but the baker down the road said ‘is slave come in for few loaves after the last festival.” Sherlock listened to them with a bored expression, occasionally picking apart facts such as the state of the edge of a girl’s stola, or the colour of a man’s ring, before nodding to John, who would mutely hand over a few cheap coins and walk them to the door before ushering in the next one.

 “They’re so _boring,_ ” muttered Sherlock, once, afterwards, drawing his knees up to his chest and rolling over on the lectus so that his face was pressed into a stuffed cushion, toes flexing and stretching restlessly.

 It _was_ dull, John agreed, privately, but it passed the time, and it was better than the cold, crushing silence that filled the room whenever they were alone. At night, when John lay on the scratchy straw pallet that Caudex, the head of the household slaves, had made up for him just inside the entrance to Sherlock’s cubiculum, the night pressed blackly in on him like a blindfold, a gag. Even Sherlock, in his rare short bursts of sleep on the ostentatious, bronze-framed bed, was almost mute, his breath even and shallow.

 And almost entirely alone in the darkness, his body stretched out along the scratchy straw pallet just inside the doorway of Sherlock’s bedchamber, John _burned._

_*_

 Each day was hell. John had nothing to say, and Sherlock was only insistent that he be with him constantly, except for John’s meals or when he sent him to fetch something from the main bedroom or from the library adjoining the side-chamber. He asked for no entertainment and provided none. The man’s apparent familiarity with his past had been unsettling; a personal invasion - _the kind of thing these Romans did best_ , he thought, bitterly, and he spent the first few days in fear of another excavation of his mind.

 It never came.

 He was relieved, really. But an invasion, at least, would have meant a battle - a declaration of conflict. It would have been something to cling to, like another round in the arena; another enemy on the in the sharp fells and valleys of his own country. He had no idea how to deal with a man whose attitude was so thrumming with focus; even at night, when the man lay down on his large bed, he would not sleep; he immersed himself in scrawling notes and sealing them with wax, until he seemed to tire of it and turned to the kithara, strumming lightly on the fine strings with a shell-like plectrum. In those minutes, John would lean back on his own bedroll and simply watch the master at work; not even John could deny that the music was beautiful, if a little odd; clear and sweet and piercing, swelling through the room.

 Eventually, inevitably, Sherlock would put it aside and snap his fingers for John to fetch the scroll with the odd numbers on it. He seemed able to absorb himself in it for hours, mulling over it in silence for a further few hours whilst John sat awkwardly at his feet, counting the tiles in the mosaic floor.

 Of course, it was natural that a member of the aristocracy would spend his days lazing away. But Sherlock seemed so full of pent-up, _angry_ energy that the air fizzed and crackled with it, like lightning above the hills, that John could hardly stand it; the man clearly needed _something_ , but what was it?

 From the little things the citizens who came to the morning _salutatio_ said, John began to understand that Sherlock was some kind of - what? He struggled to find a word; it seemed at times as though he might be one of the _vigiles_ , the watchmen; at other times he seemed like an advisor. Several times, people came to ask him questions about stolen property or missing papers; John was never sent out of the room, though the clients almost always requested it, and from these interviews John realised that the man who had bought him had a truly exceptional mind, though a shrewd and cool one. He could solve their problems with a few simple, direct questions, and the time between them entering and the clink of coins that accompanied the close of the meeting was always short. In those minutes, however, John caught fleeting hints of the man's brilliance, and he was ashamed to admit to himself that those glimpses piqued his interest. Whatever else Sherlock Holmes might be, it had to be admitted that he was _clever,_ and sharp as any of John's spears had ever been.

 Most of the time, however, he was silent and unmoving, lying as though unconscious on the lectus in the atrium, his fingertips steepled on his chest, or his palms together as though in supplication.

 When Sherlock worked in the side-chamber, the tablinum, it was a little easier; John amused himself by staring out of the open archway into the private peristylium, the garden attended by a dark-haired, half-Minoan slave-boy with tanned arms and skinny hips. Birds came and went freely in the garden, and a breeze wafted in and ruffled the master’s hair; these were the only things in the household that seemed to change or move without Sherlock’s instruction. The garden-slave would whistle, sometimes, until Sherlock growled at him to _shut up, in the name of Hercules,_ and the boy would disappear towards the kitchen.

 It was _lonely._

 “Nothing happens to me,” he complained, once, to the _lares,_ the twin statues of the household gods, keptin the near the kitchens. In most houses of Rome, they would be revered; here, the other slaves respected them, but Sherlock ignored them almost entirely.

 The lares stared impassively back. John watched them for a moment, brooding, then shrugged and turned his back.

 Why should a pair of Roman gods have any interest in _him_ , after all?

 

* * *

　

In Marcus Gregorius Lestrade's personal opinion, he was _good_ at his job.

 Rome had seen a dip in crime since he had been promoted to the position of one of the six Centurions charged with the care of the First Cohort of the _Cohortes Urbanae._ Usually victims were supposed to seek out help and justice through a network of familial connections, and the Urban Cohort involved themselves only in investigating political crimes, or threats against the people of the state. The Vigiles were even less helpful; their job, it was generally acknowledged, was to control riots and put out fires; anything else was above and beyond the call of duty, and therefore unnecessary.

 In Lestrade's view, one's duty was the bare _minimum_ one could do; there was no maximum limit. There was no _all or nothing;_ there was only _all._ Citizens respected him; his attitude was well-known and well-admired in the city. Though not the Prefect of the Cohort, he was the favoured port of call for the public during a crisis - during an outbreak of burglaries, for example, or when street gangs were growing at an alarming rate. His short, efficiently-kept silver hair and his unshakable assurance in the ground beneath his feet inspired a public confidence in him afforded to few in Rome.

 Now, however, standing in front of the pillared barracks of the First Cohort, staring out at the crowd of gossipmongering plebeians swarming the street, he wished he had a less prominent position within the force of the cohort. Half of Rome seemed to be demanding answers, and he had at his side only Anderson - a man of his own Cohort, at least, but not a particularly useful one when faced with the inquisition that was the Roman public.

  _"Centurion, is it true that the recent deaths of the two magistrates in two different temples are linked?"_

  _"Centurion, is it true that there was no blood?"_

  _"Centurion, was it poison?"_

  _"Centurion, do you think it's true that they were struck down by the gods?"_

  _"Centurion, was it suicide?"_

 The tirade of questions grew more and more tumultuous; rising to a loud, rumbling clamour of cacophonic sound that filled the street, until no one voice was distinguishable from the rest.

When it became too much, Lestrade squared his shoulders and took a breath. “Right,” he murmured to himself. “Crowd control.”

“The Lady Fortuna be with you, sir,” muttered Anderson.

Lestrade nodded and raised his voice, lifting his palms to appeal for peace. “ _Silence!”_ he called out, voice loud and firm, but placating. It was his crowd voice; the cool, stoic authority he knew the public liked to see, rather than the angry, bull-like bellowing of his bloated superior, the Tribune Pittus Antonius. “I want _silence_!”

It took a minute, but the noise slowly shrank to manageable proportions, dwindling away to discontented mutterings and a few Lestrade sighed. It would have to do, he supposed.

“Right,” he said, tersely. The hot afternoon sun beat down on his forehead, and he prayed he wasn’t flushing. “I understand that you’re worried.” That was step one with placating a rabble like this; acknowledging the issue. “The magistrates are usually safe, especially within the sanctuary of a temple. I’m sure you’re all wondering how this happened.”

“Too right!” yelled someone, and there was an outbreak of nervous laughter.

Lestrade waited until the quiet had resumed. “Now, we don’t have all the answers yet.” He held up a hand. “Wait. I _can_ assure you we’re working on it.”

“Or your dear friend Holmes is,” muttered Anderson. “What’s it been, a week? He’s losing his touch. If he ever had it.”

Lestrade ignored him. “We don’t believe this is the work of the gods,” he continued. “The magistrates are not known to have been impious; let’s not insult Minerva and Apollo, children of Jupiter, without due cause.” That was step two. Nobody liked to provoke divine fury. There were a few nods amongst the crowd members, and one or two made the sign against misfortune.

“So you’re saying that it’s a man doing this?” someone piped up. “Killing men without leaving a mark? Is a serial murderer on the loose?”

“A serial murderer?” Lestrade attempted to sound dismissive. “Please, citizens. There’s no clear evidence that the two deaths are _actually_ linked; this could be coincidence.” There were several disbelieving snorts, and Lestrade frowned. “I’m not implying that it _is._ But these deaths were clearly not violent.”

“So it _was_ poison?” a voice demanded. “Is that what you’re saying?”

Lestrade repressed an urge to find something to hurl at them. “It’s not impossible. In that case, the poisons were likely self-administered.”

“Suicides?” demanded several voices. “Both of them?”

“Perhaps.” Lestrade’s voice was tight with restraint.

“But you can’t _have_ serial suicides!” someone called out, and there was a loud rumble of assent.

Lestrade clenched a fist behind his back. “Well, it seems you can.”

“ _Sir,_ ” warned Anderson.

Lestrade took a deep breath. “My fellow citizens.” That was always a good one for a crowd, he thought; they liked to have an acknowledgement of their status. “Let’s not get excited. Two deaths hardly makes for a serial anything.”

“But what if this is the beginning?” A redheaded, nervous-looking man stepped forward. “How are we supposed to stay safe?”

“Well, _don’t commit suicide,”_ bit out Lestrade.

There was an immediate uproar.

“Backtrack!” hissed Anderson. _“Backtrack!”_

Lestrade glared at him, but raised his hands for the third time. His popularity and consequent authority seemed to be proving useful, at least; the angry roar shrank once more. _Step three,_ he thought, and he summoned the last reserves of his patience before he began to speak again.

“Obviously, this is a frightening time for the Roman people. However, all anyone has to do is exercise reasonable precautions. We are all as safe as we want to be. Thank you.” He saluted and turned away. The vigiles would deal with dissipating the crowd; his job was to make sure there would be no need for another one.

_Please, Sherlock,_ he thought. _Think of something soon._

 

* * *

 

　

It was barely dawn when John awoke, stiff-limbed and taut from dreams of the arena and the long road in chains through Britain; the first moments of consciousness were tangled with dream-images of swords slashing close to his face, of the burning pain of stumbling along with blood dribbling from his shoulder, head bent under the cruel high laughter of faceless Romans shouting abuse at him that he could barely understand.

 Slowly, shifting into consciousness, he began to realise that it was Sherlock who loomed over him, grim and pale as temple marble, hissing his name; _Ioannes, Ioannes._ Briefly, he had no idea where he was; then, the darkness swam into a dim light and he realised he was lying on the scratchy bed-pallet of straw that one of the hundred or so slaves had pulled up for him inside the door of Sherlock’s cubiculum.

 “Awake, I’m awake,” he muttered, dully, the Latin thick and badly-pronounced, as it always was before he could properly wake and adjust himself to Rome. “What is it?”

 “Get up, and get dressed,” Sherlock ordered. “I need you to shave me, then fetch yourself a spear from the armoury. We’re going out.” His nose was almost touching John’s - _no damn respect for personal space,_ thought John - and then, abruptly, it was not; Sherlock was across the room in a few long strides, pulling on a soft, well-made tunic and girding it with a short cord, so that it pulled tightly across his chest.

 John struggled to stand, nightmares still fading, and bent to lift his own tunic from where he had folded it beside his own bed, pulling it quickly over his head and moving to open the shutters as he did up the belt-cord. The pallid light of dawn washed over the room, cold and grey. It was a relief, almost; Rome was too hot, in the daytime, when surges of warm bodies rolled like a wave through the city - ordinary citizens going about ordinary lives, hustling and bustling in the never-ending throng of people.

 A silver basin of hot water stood ready on a table at the foot of Sherlock’s ostentatious, bronze-framed bed, and with an imperious flick of his fingers Sherlock indicated that John should wash his face. There were no shaving tools laid out, and John felt Sherlock’s stubble under his fingers as he lathered up the man’s cheeks with the fat-soap, the warm, foamy water trickling down his high cheekbones and narrow jaw line until he was ready to be shaved.

 The sharp, curved razor lay beside the basin of water, the hook-like bronze handle shaped like some winged beast of Roman myth. John picked it up, weighing it in his palm; it was heavy as a large pebble, but the iron was expensive; well-made and hammered flat and sharp. He lifted it, an uncomfortable tingle running through his It was odd, like this, holding a blade so close to the master’s throat, but Sherlock lifted his chin impatiently, offering his neck with no thought of the risk that a slip would present to his jugular vein. He was, John realised, completely vulnerable. His pulse quickened with temptation; it would take so very little, really, to slit his throat and run.

 He became aware, suddenly, that Sherlock was watching him with quick, pale eyes, lips curved gently upwards. Did he know what John was thinking? Surely he would have stopped him by now, if so. No. He was simply enjoying his power as a master.

 John could do it, easily. _One quick thrust of the blade_ , he thought. That would be it. Over.

 But where would he go? He barely knew his way around the city, much less across Gaul, and beyond the furthest coast lay a sea that he would have to beg, bully or barter his way across, with nothing to recommend him but whatever money he could steal from Sherlock’s room before he ran, with Rome ever at his heels.

  _Killing him will put me in a worse position than ever,_ John reminded himself, sharply, and set to work, dragging the blade warily over the Roman’s skin.

 It would have been intimate, perhaps, except that Sherlock fidgeted and ran his own damp hands through his curls and over his face to hurry him, like a child at the barber for the first time. Twice John had to pull his hand away, so that he would not slice the man’s face open; the gods knew all deserved it, but a whipping would earn him no favours. All the same, Sherlock seemed recklessly unconcerned by the sharp iron - and there he was, twitching restlessly _again…_

 “Keep _still,_ before I cut off your damn ear by mistake!” John snapped, at last, frustrated - then froze, alarmed, the words _idiot! idiot!_ thundering in his ears.

 But Sherlock only raised an eyebrow. To John’s surprise, he actually subsided, although his fingers twitched at his sides, and eventually he folded his arms, and stood quietly, eyes closed.

 Somewhere downstairs, the shouts of the head slave began to sound, and the slow footsteps of groggy servants hurrying back and forth began to sound on the tiled floors. Outside, the peal of iron against bronze rang from the distant metalworkers, setting the birds screeching in protest, and all the while John’s fingers were steady on the sharp flat blade, scraping away the dirt and short beard-growth.

He looked younger without the beard, John mused, swiping his thumb over the soft skin of the man’s cool cheek to check for stray lumps and ingrown hairs. There was something of the Greek in him; his nose was small and neat, not the Roman nose, nor his skin the tanned golden-brown of an outdoor worker. In John’s own country, he would have been too soft to last more than a winter in the great snowy mountains and rugged moors. Here in Rome, however, with her great straight roads into the fortified city, he was coldly beautiful.

“That’s enough,” said Sherlock, at last, irritably, jerking away John’s arm and dipping his face into the basin, so that he came up like a wet dog, fresh-faced and clean, though his short Roman curls clung to his forehead. John resisted a strange urge to reach up and unplaster them from his skin. If he wanted to look like he’d been swimming, let him.

“Put on your shoes,” Sherlock ordered. “We’re late as it is.”

“Where-” began John, already fumbling with his sandals - but Sherlock was gone, his footsteps muffled by the long, lush rug of the corridor that ran along the upper floor of the great villa.

“You’re welcome,” muttered John, rinsing the shaving lather from his hands - presumably someone else would come to fetch the bowl, he thought, and felt a tinge of alarm that he had not woken up when it was brought in - and went to find a spear.


End file.
